Ричард Стерн - The Tower

If one result of all of these reexaminations was constant, even inevitable, it was determination that could be expressed in two words: never again.

Never again a Titanic blundering in the ice lanes.

Never again a Hindenburg filled with explosive hydrogen gas.

Never again if good men could prevent it a Hamburg firestorm, a Nagasaki, a Hiroshima.

Never again a fire like this in a building this size—

Correction: Never again a building this size. Didn’t that make more sense?

Bigness for bigness* sake was never a solution. Remember that.

“I will,” Nat said silently. “By God, I will!”

He heard a telephone ring in the trailer, and he waited for it to be answered. Patty’s voice said. “Yes. He’s here.” And then, expressionless, “Nat.”

She was holding the instrument out to him. “Zib,” she said, and that was all.

Zib had left the magazine at the usual time, taxied home, and hurried into a scented bath. Luxuriating in the suds, feeling the tensions flow away, she told herself that everything was going to be all right. After that talk with Cathy she felt like a different person, able to see herself more clearly, and wasn’t that the name of the game—know thyself?

And she had turned her back on Paul Simmons, hadn’t she? Nat must have seen that from her telephone call telling him that Paul was not coming down to the building. It was a sharp cutting of the last ties, wasn’t it? The symbolism was inescapable. And at heart Nat was a lamb. He hadn’t really meant those harsh things he had said to her. He couldn’t have. Nobody could. Not to her.

She sank deep in the tub, closed her eyes, and stroked one smooth sudsy shoulder and arm with her hand. What was that commercial on TV? “If he doesn’t feel the difference, he has no feeling.” That applied to all of her, didn’t it?

Of course Nat would be tired when he got home. But not too tired. She had always had the power to arouse him. That was one thing the Women’s Lib fanatics tended to forget, possibly because some of them, but not all, were rather unattractive pieces of sexual merchandise, and any subtle advances they might make would tend to be—what were that judge’s marvelous words when he passed Ulysses as salable?—“emetic rather than aphrodisiac.”

Zib’s own qualifications in that direction were impeccable—as she well knew. And, given that headstart, in the constant underlying sexual struggle between herself and a man, any man, there simply was no contest.

Men flattered themselves that they were dominant, waving their muscles and all that jazz. In many cultures, as Zib had learned in an anthropology course, polygamy was the norm. Polyandry, on the other hand, was rarely practiced. And that merely demonstrated how out of joint man’s thinking was, because one woman could satisfy a dozen men, could she not? And a mere man was hard put to satisfy one woman. But, as the British said, there it was: man’s thinking callused over by the ages.

She stroked her shoulder and arm again and decided that there was something to this bath-oil bit: her skin did feel smooth, soft, exciting to the touch. She stroked her breasts gently. Better and better. But, “Easy, girl,” she said aloud, “save it all for Nat. Don’t waste it now.” She got out of her bath, dried herself, and applied scent sparingly to throat, breasts, and belly. Then she put on the lightweight full-length white robe Nat liked especially, and the heeled mules he had given her, and went into the living room to put music on the record player. It was then that she decided to call the trailer office.

On the phone, “Hello,” Nat said. And what had she thought to say anyway? “Hi.” And she added inanely, “I’m home.”

Nat heard the music in the background: “Scheherazade,” the violin voice just beginning its theme, Scheherazade herself beguiling the sultan. Balls. “I guessed that.”

“Darling, how is it going? I mean—”

“Great. Just great.” Through the open doorway Nat looked again at the crowded plaza. He raised one hand to wipe wearily at his forehead and saw the grime from the subbasement on his palm.

Oh, he had known dirt before right here on the job, and he and Zib had even laughed together about the way he sometimes looked when he came home at night.

But this was different, as different as night from day, death from life. This was—

Zib said, “I—tried to watch on television. I—couldn’t.” She paused. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?”

“Understatement.” Nat paused. “Did you want something?”

The hesitation in her voice was un-Ziblike. “Not really. I came home and—” She stopped. Her voice now was uncertain. “Will you be coming home?” She could not bring herself to add the single word: ever.

Nat was conscious that Patty was watching him. He tried to ignore her and could not.

“Darling, I asked a question.”

“I don’t know the answer.” Nat hung up.

Zib hung up slowly. It was then that the tears began.

The telephone on the desk made noises. Nat walked quickly to it, picked it up, spoke his name.

The governor’s voice said, “Only two more women to go. Then we start the men’s lottery sequence.” His voice said nothing in particular, but a faint warning was plain.

“Okay,” Nat said. “I’ve talked with the chief. He says in a command situation either it’s obey or mutiny, and if a mutiny begins—”

“The chief reaches for the nearest belaying pin and whacks the nearest head, is that it?” the governor said. There was patent approval in his tone.

“That’s it,” Nat said. “He knows his equipment and he’s been through this before, and he says if disorder is allowed—” He paused, realizing he was speaking to one of the potential victims. Then he went on because there was no way to conceal the thought. “If disorder is allowed,” he repeated, “the chief says nobody is going to get out alive. I’m sorry, Governor, but that’s his message, and I have to agree with it.”

“No apology necessary, young man. I agree with it too. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Yes, sir. A couple.” Nat paused to gather his thoughts. “You might pass the word right now that at the first sign of disorder I’ll tell the chief and he’ll hold the breeches buoy on the Trade Center roof until people line up again. If anybody doubts that, have him get on this phone and I’ll tell him.”

“As long,” the governor said, “as the telephone line* remains in service.”

“That’s the second thought, Governor,” Nat said. “We’ll get right through to the city radio station. They’ve got to have a mike and remote equipment here, (f the. phone goes out, we’ll go on radio. You’ve got a transistor radio up there?”

“Currently playing rock-and-roll,” the governor said. He paused. “Agreed.”

“If the phone is out,” Nat said, “you won’t be able to reach us. If there’s trouble, just flutter a handkerchief at the window and the chief will call down to me. Okay?” There was a short silence. “Okay,” the governor said. Another silence. Then, “You think well, young man. You have done a superlative job. You have the gratitude of all of us.” Pause. “That is just in case the opportunity to tell you in person doesn’t arise.”

“We’ll do the best we can to get you all out,” Nat said. “I know you will. And thanks.”

The lower forty floors of the building were now in shadow. Patrolman Shannon stared up at the smoking mass and shook his head in disbelief. “Do you see what I see, Frank? Up there the building is glowing!”

It was. Most of the windows had broken out because of the heat, and smoke poured through the empty frames. But through the smoke, in the darkened shadows plain to see, the building itself was faintly incandescent, and in the distorted air currents caused by its radiation the entire structure seemed to writhe.